


Cut Through the Clouds

by Oasis_Observer



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Battle, M/M, Merry Christmas, Old Wounds, Pining, Reaper76 - Freeform, bullet wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oasis_Observer/pseuds/Oasis_Observer
Summary: After their confrontation in Giza, Egypt (comic: Old Soldiers), Jack has so many things he needs to say to his old friend, Gabriel. Since that it's the Christmas season, he knows where he might find him... (reference: Reflections)





	Cut Through the Clouds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chibimono](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibimono/gifts).



It wasn’t cold enough to snow, and so Jack was forced to endure a ferocious rain storm pelting him into the late hours of a rather long December night. He had been used to finding refuge in the most unsavory of places since the fall of Overwatch, but even he had to admit that a washed out rooftop of a decrypted apartment building was not an ideal resting place. A small part of him would long for the hotel accommodations that a Strike Commander would have access to, even if it was merely a double bed with freshly laundered sheets, but the military man inside of him always stifled such frivolous desires.  
A soldier had bigger concerns than where he laid his head at night, such as the current status of one of his fellow veterans.  
Waiting was a skill he had honed over the years when he had an actual career, but for some reason, having no job to speak of made him feel as if there was a constant itch all over his weary body that only mercenary contracts and bounties could scratch. Whenever he was on a personal mission such as tonight, his leg would twitch incessantly and it only made him feel less polished than he believed himself to be. It didn’t help that he had no guarantee his target would appear tonight - or any night, for that matter - and he was essentially playing the ‘waiting game’.  
The person he was hunting down was even more impatient than he ever was, and that gave Jack little comfort when he tried to rest his eyes. The rain used to be something that helped him fall asleep in his younger years and he decided to appreciate the white noise as a multitude of drops splattered onto his leather jacket. He wondered if a nap would occupy his time and make him feel less restless until his target arrived.  
Until he heard the familiar click of a shotgun looming over his hunched form.  
Instinctively, he felt his hand twitch, the urge to activate his Tactical Visor in an attempt to keep his life consuming his mental state. But when a millisecond passed and he had felt nothing more than the cool edge of the gun’s front sight touch the crown of his head, it gave Jack pause. In fact, neither of them seemed to have anything ready to say in such a situation. The rain suddenly felt like extra weight on his entire form, no longer the source of comfort as he waited to see what would happen next.  
Mockery?  
Cursing?  
It was too much to hope for an apology for that bullet wound in his back, he knew that at the very least.  
Finally, when he was graced with the sound of that heavily modified voice, it was a rather mundane statement. “She’s not here to save you this time.” The rumble that accompanied his words now was clearly a permanent fixture of the changes Jack had witnessed in Giza, but he was just as disturbed hearing it now as he had been then.  
It was like swallowing a horse pill, having to accept that this entity - this monstrosity - had taken the place of his once dear companion, his Overwatch counterpart. “Neither is your little army. Thought it might do us some good to talk alone.”  
The steel pressed to his head began to dig into his scalp, driving home the message that he had irritated the ‘Reaper’ with his attempt at civility. “Nothing you could say will ever do us any good.”  
“Right,” Slowly, testing his limits, Jack dared himself to rise. “Because you blame me for what you’ve become--”  
The hard smack of the shotgun’s stock across his face proved that his claim was in fact accurate. Unsteady in his stance, Jack fell onto his knees, hissing as the sharpness of the pain as he tried to stow away his burning desire to tackle his attacker. Giving Gabe the fight he was apparently craving would only end with carnage and that wasn’t the point of his trip. That wasn’t his mission.  
That wasn’t why Gabriel Reyes was his current target.  
That wasn’t why he deserted Ana for the moment in order to come to this city on a rainy day.  
“Don’t talk down to the man with a gun to your head.” the Reaper warned him post-assault. There was merriment sewn between his words, his glee found in causing harm to a once close comrade translating strongly from behind his mask. The darkness he had suspected in his friend all those years ago was nothing but a fraction of what stood before him now, Jack realized, and he had been made the fool in front of the world for turning a blind eye to him for so long.  
Tossing his head high, Jack glared at that symbolic mask. “Just using your words.”  
“Right,” like an elongated man, Gabriel bent forward and let his body hang in the most haunting way as he brought that Reaper mask down, directly in front of his Tactical Visor. “The ones I used after you fell into my trap in Egypt.”  
There it was: the rivalry that he always tried to tamper down when they were younger, wiser, together. Jack knew now that he had been naive in thinking that giving him Blackwatch to manage would satisfy his dream of becoming Strike Commander, because it was the only facet of Gabriel Reyes’ personality that seemed to remain.  
It ignited an old spark of frustration inside of the old soldier, to know that no matter how much time would pass them by, that damned pride of his would never die. Infuriated more than he should have allowed himself to be, Jack found the sudden impulse to leap into action as he lifted a rounded fist and punched the jawline hiding beneath that damn mask. He took advantage immediately of the stunned Reaper and supplied him with an uppercut to the chin as well, warning him to stand back. Instead, he flew across the roof like a dismantled storm cloud caught on a vicious breeze. As he reformed, Jack managed to get to his feet just in time to stare him down with the same vitality.  
This time, he had his rifle in hand, too.  
It felt like time stood still for but a moment while they sized one another up from head to toe. This is who they had become - Solider 24 and Soldier 76 - all because of the delegations made for them by the UN, by the real leaders of Overwatch. Their lives never their own until now, and here they were, about to engage one another in a childish brawl. The man standing across from him shrouded in darkness ironically now looked like the exact creature the UN feared he’d be…  
And Jack knew that he still dressed like the model soldier, despite his intention to leave that life behind.  
They had met through Overwatch.  
They had supposedly died over it.  
But in reality, only their relationship had.  
At the very same instant that a heavy droplet of rain crashed onto his bare forehead, both of them had decided to charge. As Gabriel raised his signature weaponry, Jack dared himself to charge at him like a bull impassioned by the colour red. He clicked on his visor’s target lock ability in case Gabe dared to phase in and out of a physical state while he raised the stock of his own firearm in the hopes of smashing that damn mask into smithereens. Of course the obvious play made for an obvious retreat, but he was wiser about the Reaper’s abilities now and was quick to follow the mass of dark energy with his gaze.  
To his surprise, the haze began to swarm around him. A darkened tornado locked him into place and forced his Tactical Visor’s tracking system to perform a small meltdown as it tried to make sense of the chaos. When the rain no longer reached him, Jack began firing wildly at the darkened dome that formed over him. He could hear Gabriel’s cackle echo all around him but he refused to stop firing. Fearing him might use them too soon did stop the experienced soldier from releasing his Helix Rockets into the top of the shadow that swarmed him. The spray caused an opening for the moment, inspiring him to make use of his super strength and leap out of the cage of Gabriel’s ghostly body.  
He barrel-rolled once he crashed into the apartment building’s roof, only to be fired at by the Hellfire Shotguns of the Reaper once again. Like the trained combatant he was, he knew that making his pattern unpredictable would save him from another bullet lodged into his back. He suddenly decided to run towards the ledge of the roof and pretend he was about to jump off of it. But instead, he made use of the raised edge and propelled himself into the air. He spun his body around like an Olympian athlete and took aim at that damned mask that kept him from seeing the face of the man he once knew. Shot after shot, no bullet seemed to be able to destroy that facade Gabriel wore and it only made Jack crazier.  
His boots weren’t able to absorb the fall and he skid on the wet surface of the roof. The alarm of his visor rang in his ears, warning him that Gabe was now storming towards him. Jack threw up his stare and tried to scan for a way out--  
“AGH!” A favourite of his former ally was to leave him with riddled with bullet holes, and this time, he aimed at the right side of his chest. There was a sliver of a second of pure nothingness, but then the pain imploded and began to travel all throughout his body, warning him of the possible doom this one bullet could cause for him--  
“RGH!” His left knee was fired at, and the bullet landed in the muscle of his thigh. Unable to put any weight on it, he was forced to fall onto his knees just as he had when Gabriel had struck him in the face earlier. The reminder of that moment - and the fear that he might aim for his head once again - compelled Jack to raise his rifle high despite the horrific pain it caused him. It was a struggle to lift his massive weapon above his chest and that meant compromising his aim… Until he decided on a simpler target.  
He aimed and shot at the shotgun bullets on the Reaper’s chest, watching them explode upon impact. The confusion it caused earned him a moment and he tried to charge at him one last time; through the flurry of silver pellets that fell around him, Jack tackled Gabriel to the ground and let his exhausted weight fall onto his body. If he had learned anything from their battle in Giza, it was that he could still pin the bastard to the ground if he wanted to.  
Without the strength to punch him, Jack dared himself to test the limits of this corrupted body of Soldier 24 as he laid a hand around his throat and squeezed. Panting wildly, he gritted his teeth as he dared to taunt the man that had now successfully lodged three bullets into his body. “Nothing is simple with you, is it?” It was just as much a joke as it was a curse.  
“If you’d lay down and die, it would be.” Gabriel dared to joke while he was being choked, chuckling so strongly that it made Jack’s palm vibrate ever so slightly.  
It disgusted him to hear the being that used to be his friend say such a thing. “All these years, all the death we’ve seen, and you’d still say something so foul. Mocking the people we lost in the line of duty because you can’t take responsibility for anything you’ve ever done!”  
“I told you, Jack,” he sounded as though he was spitting his name out of his mouth as if it was in bad taste. So vile was he, that Gabriel felt the need to dig one of his glove’s sharp nail-like fixture into the bullet wound over his knee. “I’ve done what I’ve done because I’ve always been one step ahead of you.”  
“So you knew I’d come here.” Jack dared to bark back.  
If that skull-shaped mask could have glared, it would have. Instead, Gabriel was able to lift his back off of the rooftop on the slightest of angles just so he could hiss. “How dare you come here.”  
But it was where he knew his friend would be. There was someone in this city that he used to visit, but the Reaper couldn’t stop in and visit any civilian anymore. On a rainy day during the Christmas holidays, his longing would bring the sulking Gabriel Reyes to this city.  
And that was why he came: in the hopes of appealing the heart that was hopefully still beating beneath the chest plate of his haunting costume.  
His breath was hard to catch, but Jack refused to stop speaking while he had this chance. “Gabriel, it doesn’t… need to be this way.”  
His enemy scoffed. “You’re a disgrace.”  
“What else is new?” Jack fought back, unwilling to wade through the swarm of insults anymore. He had lost his patience with their verbal sparring as much as he was exhausted by the battle he had no doubt lost. For whatever reason, he was still towering over Gabe and he wasn’t going to waste this moment like they weren’t weathered men in their fifties who had both lost the lives they knew.  
“Can’t argue with that--”  
Enough. Cutting him off, Jack dove into an emotional onslaught of things he’d literally been dying to say to whatever Gabriel Reyes was now, on the ground before him. “I stood up for you, lost all of my credibility for you! I was presumed dead because of all the things I did trying to defend you, Gabriel. But you blame me for this thing you’ve become? It had to have been Moira, right? She did this to you, and you did this to you. Not me. I’d never want this for you.”  
“Yes you DID!” And just like that, the moment was over as the Reaper turned into a thick, black fog and slipped away between Jack’s legs. It was impossible for him to do anything else but slump to the floor as all of his energy left him the instant he realized he’d most likely never be that close to him again. Always a hothead, he couldn’t take the scolding he deserved and flew away once something struck a nerve.  
Was it his correct guess of Moira’s involvement?  
Was it when he clarified the responsibility Gabe had to take for his own life?  
The looming dark cloud circled him again, but it was less condensed and had much more to say the second time around. “Come here again and you’ll be leaving this city in a body bag.”  
“...Merry Christmas, Gabe.” Jack fought to keep his breath as the pain tried to cease his lungs, just so he could say goodbye to his friend. It felt like a farewell, a genuine one that he hadn’t been allowed to have after the disaster in Switzerland. Despite their past, despite everything they had done for one another, perhaps it was time to accept that the Reaper was all that was left of the shell of the man his friend once was. Maybe it was time to digest his own reality instead of yelling at Gabriel to do the same…  
However, as the rain collided with him, slapping his pain-ridden body with every single drop that fell upon his downcast pose, Jack knew that that was impossible for him. There was a piece of Gabe that was refusing to move away from his own pain, and it would probably kill him if he had to believe that Soldier 24, Commander Reyes, his partner, his friend was truly gone for forever. He knew nothing of the science behind the transformation he had endured…  
But if he would ask him to take him away from everything Overwatch has ever touched, Jack knew he would.  
That was just as striking as the tightness of his breaths. Too much of his life had been integrated with Gabe’s and the love that was embedded into him for that man wouldn’t leave him, not because of a bullet in Giza, or two bullets on a very rainy night…  
He knew he’d fight for Gabe until the end of his days, which was the melancholy ending he expected to their sudden holiday get together.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, chibimono! This is my first time writing Reaper76 so I hope you enjoy~ I've wanted to get more into the Overwatch community (especially through my ships), so I jumped on the chance to join this event. (Also, writing in the OW timeline is kinda hard since it's all over the dang place!) I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and a Happy New Year!


End file.
